Dominance of Dandelion Racing is a novelty in Super Formula

Honda-powered squad Dandelion Racing started its 2025 season with four consecutive wins, across the opening double-headers at Suzuka and Motegi, with its drivers Tadasuke Makino and Kakunoshin Ohta picking up two wins apiece.

Including last year’s closing double at Suzuka, which was swept by Ohta, Dandelion has won the last six races in a row — the last time that was done was by Nakajima Racing, all the way back in 2000. That year, which was dominated by ex-Formula 1 racer Toranosuke Takagi, was also the last time a team opened a campaign with four straight victories.

Makino and Ohta are both 20 points clear in the drivers’ championship over third-placed Ayumu Iwasa, the Racing Bulls F1 reserve who leads Team Mugen’s charge. The teams’ title already looks virtually a done deal with Dandelion on over double the points of Mugen.

It’s a remarkable run of form for the small Kyoto-based team, which has just 25 permanent staff and was formed in 1993 by Kiyoshi Muraoka to race in All-Japan Formula 3.

After struggling for results both in F3 and the now-defunct Japan Touring Car Championship, which ran to Super Touring rules, Dandelion first entered what was then known as Formula Nippon in 1999 with a single car for little-known Argentinian driver Ruben Derfler.

The early years in Formula Nippon were tough going, but the charismatic Muraoka was busy building the foundations for future success. In 2001, he signed Norimitsu Yoshida as chief engineer, beginning a partnership that continues to the present day. Later that season he signed a deal with the Sauber F1 team to provide technical support.

But results-wise, it was only after the team signed Ulsterman Richard Lyons to replace an underperforming Jonathan Cochet in mid-2002 that things took an upturn.

With the help of engineer Rob Arnott, who joined the team in 2003, Lyons scored Dandelion’s first win that year at Suzuka, which proved the springboard to a successful title bid the following year. Muraoka also credits the team’s expansion to a second car and the work of veteran Naoki Hattori (who failed to qualify for two grands prix at Coloni back in 1991) as Lyons’ team-mate during this period as another factor in Dandelion’s rise.

When the current Toyota versus Honda engine rivalry began in 2006, Dandelion joined the Honda camp. Starting with Takuya Izawa in 2009, it was charged with helping train the marque’s young drivers, its relationship with Honda evolving from that of mere engine supplier to something much deeper.

A first teams’ title came in 2012 with Izawa and another Honda protege, Koudai Tsukakoshi. After a fallow period during the SF14 era (the highlight of which was Stoffel Vandoorne’s pair of wins in 2016 on his way to F1), Dandelion bounced back in the first year of the SF19 with another teams’ title, followed by a second drivers’ title for Naoki Yamamoto in 2020.

“What we are trying to demonstrate is that privateer teams can still do great things, like in the old days of motorsport” Kiyoshi Muraoka

Constant chopping-and-changing in the driver line-up, with Yamamoto and Nirei Fukuzumi leaving in consecutive years, caused Dandelion’s star to wane again somewhat. The first season with the revised SF23 machine also looked like it could be one to forget, before a productive in-season test at Fuji catapulted Makino and then-rookie Ohta up the order, culminating with the latter getting his first win at the end of that season.

Makino broke his victory duck in emotional style last year at Autopolis, with he and Ohta delivering Dandelion its third teams’ title. Now with both its drivers at the head of the standings, split by just a single point, Muraoka has set the explicit target of winning the drivers’ and teams’ crowns in the same year for the first time in the squad’s history.

Dandelion’s current success, on paper, shouldn’t be possible. Lean in size, it gets by with just two engineers per car at a time that most other teams have three, with the likes of Mugen and TOM’S having even more than that. The ultra-experienced Yoshida takes on the dual role of race engineer to Ohta’s #6 car and team director.

Based in Kameoka City near Kyoto, Dandelion is also somewhat isolated from the main hub of the Japanese motorsport industry in the Gotemba area (two hours’ drive from Tokyo, near Fuji), where most Super Formula teams are based.

This makes it challenging to recruit new staff, although it also fosters a sense of loyalty among the members it does attract, and helps stop any secrets from leaking. The F1 equivalent – fittingly enough, given Dandelion’s former association – would be Sauber.

Putting the location to one side, perhaps the better F1 analogue would be Williams as, like the Grove squad, Dandelion exists purely to compete and win in its chosen discipline. 

It doesn’t compete in any other categories, eschewing Japan’s other top series, Super GT, in which the likes of TOM’S, Mugen and Nakajima are all active. “I think this gives us a kind of purity I think other teams don’t have,” Muraoka told Autosport in an interview last year.

Ex-Formula 2 racer Makino and new rising star Ohta also deserve their share of the credit for Dandelion’s 2025 form, their friendly rivalry pushing the pair to ever-greater heights.

Both look like legitimate title contenders, and the strain their up-to-now cordial relationship will come under is sure to be a talking point as the season develops, especially after Ohta was left fuming after the second race of the Suzuka opener after being passed by Makino while under the impression the team had instructed him to stay behind.

Muraoka could well have a job on his hands keeping the pair in check as the prize nears, but after a pair of 1-2 finishes for his drivers at Motegi, it’s all good vibes for now. Indeed, at Motegi, the flamboyant team owner appeared in the parc ferme interview to jokingly tell long-time sponsor NTT Docomo to open its wallet and cough up some win bonuses!

After Dandelion won the teams’ title in 2019, Muraoka had announced his retirement, but a combination of circumstances amid the COVID-19 pandemic finally meant he stayed on as the public ‘face’ of the team. Super Formula, which is using the slogan ‘Human Motorsport’ to promote itself, is all the richer for having him around.

And in an era in which money is king, it’s refreshing to see an underdog outfit like his that is still capable of upsetting the odds.

“In most championships, you need to be a manufacturer or have a close alliance with a manufacturer to win,” said Muraoka. “What we are trying to demonstrate is that privateer teams can still do great things, like in the old days of motorsport. I think if a team like ours didn’t exist any more, the championship would be less interesting.” Amen to that.